Sunday, November 7, 2010

Got Tunnels

I taught a class yesterday at the field.  One of the people I knew who was coming  has been trying to motivate her dog. He runs really fast at home but not at class.  One of the things I suggested she change was playing  with the tennis ball.  He really likes the tennis ball and she plays it  a lot with him. So I told her to only play the tennis ball game when he does agility.  Well the dog has really started to speed up.  So when I was thinking about class, I thought I would set up a tunnelers course since her dog really likes tunnels and does them fast.   OMG, do you know how hard it is to set up that many tunnels?  A killer.   I got tired at the end  and  one of the tunnels was changed to the chute.   I asked the student to tape me one time so you could see the course.  I didnt run it like it was on the paper above.  Also note, I didnt design the course.  Its a NADAC course map but I was unable to down load the file so I redid it on course designer. So dont want to get in trouble from trying to say this is mine.  I did NOT design the course above. 


What a lot of work to run the tunnelers course too!!  We added little things as class went on. I put some weave poles in and changed the teeter for the table.  I think we only ran the full course once or twice and then we did little parts.  It was to hard to run all that.  Class was lots of fun and the dogs seemed happy. 
I stuck to my "No stay,No play" rule.  She broke once and went into the tunnel. So she lost her turn and went into her crate.  The next time out she didnt move a muscle on the startline but when she was released she went slow thur the tunnel. So she knows something she did wasnt correct but Im not sure she knew it was the break at the startline.  She didnt break anymore.  Now my next dilemma is, how strict should I be at the startline.  Any movement at all , and you loose your turn?  It kinda worried me how slow she went thur the tunnel after having to go to the crate. So I did let her take a step once and leaning forward another time.  But maybe it needs to be black and white.  Maybe it should be "you move, you loose".  Any opinions?
She also didnt have any problems getting on the table. Ugh!  How am I going to fix this problem if it only happens at trials.  In the article this month  about tables, it talked about the dog showing stress at home when doing tables that you may not recognize.  So I had the student take some pictures of Miley running to the table to see if she has any stress in her body signals.  I dont see any.  Most of the pictures are blurry but they pretty much look the same. Does anyone see anything?


My computer was going to cost to much to fix so I bought a new one.  I debated on a ipad but I felt like I needed a laptop to do all things I need.  This time I bought one that should be able to handle  HD camera editing should I ever get a HD camera.

11 comments:

Sara said...

Congrats on your new computer. We have an IPad, its really cool, but I hardly use it, because it does have limits.

It was so great to see Miley doing agility again. Sounds like everyone enjoyed the class. Miley doesn't look stressed to me. Her ears look a little different, but I think that's because she's running, not stress. You may want to watch her line, to see if she's going straight, or curving a bit.

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

We have tunnelers titles here, those were our first titles ever, those are our favorite courses, but they gooooo fast!!! LOVE TUNNELERS!
congrts on your new computer, I hate having to set up a new computer, this computer i have now had windows 7 which was such a different format I couldnt even find where to get mail from.... but nice once it gets going, hope you like your new computer.

katie, Maizey and Magnus said...

Well I really don't know enough to be any help with your technical questions, sorry! But I wanted to say how nice to see Miley doing so well! It looks like it was a beautiful day and a beautiful place to run. I'm glad it was fun!

Chris and Ricky said...

It is so much fun to see you running Miley again!! She was born to run! I'm sorry I don't have any answers for you either - I think she looks great on her approach to the table. And I don't know how picky you have to be about moving on her stay (maybe the criteria of just not breaking is good enough for now and you can up the criteria to not moving at all later if you want to).

How cool that you have helped speed up a slower dog in your class! If only Ricky had a "tennis ball" equivalent...

Unknown said...

Getting new technology is always fun!
Your run with Miley looked so exciting. Both of you seemed really happy which is always good :)

Marie said...

Love to watch Miley run. The picture of Miley approaching the table doesn't look like she's stressing to me.

I'm sure you've probably tried everything that I could suggest for startlines, but one thing we work here is putting a toy or treat bag behind the dog, and releasing backwards to play, rather than always onto the course.

Sam said...

Looks like she had a blast! I don't really see much in the table picture, either - maybe a side shot would help? See if there's any tightness in her face? Our table issues got /better/ at this trial, but they're not gone yet.. they forgot to lower the dang table to 16" for the 20" class, which meant that Marge had to leap 2 feet up to the 24" table, and wasn't happy about it..

Lian said...

I think I will vote for a laptop than an iPad. Like Sara said, it has limit on it. Enjoy your new laptop ;)

The tunneler course looks fun and am so glad Miley is happy running again. She is an agility dog, you can see how much she enjoyed her agility.

Re startline stay. Before I started agility with my shelties, the first thing I will teach is startline stay. I make sure I have a strong startline stay before I compete with them as I know I cannot run!

With Sing, I later learned that he is better and faster when I do the run start with him; I vary my startline with him, sometimes I make him stay and sometimes I run start with him. When he did his startine stay, he is good, he never breaks him stay.

With Saturn, if I make him stay and wind him up, he will be fast. He may stand up from a sit position. At first, I dislike it but later I found that eventhough he is on stand position but he hasn't move from the spot so I accept it and it also prove that he is faster when he is in stand position. This is how I later teach Sizzle to stay in stand position instead of sit or down.

Just recently, Saturn started to creep on startline stay, so we are going back to strengthen the stay. He is not as strong as Miley, so we cannot play the "no stay, no play" game with him.

Morganne said...

With both Sage and Summit I thoroughly proofed a down stay (I start my dogs from a down) with DASH. I also incorporated a NRM with both dogs to mark when they would break (Summit's is a verbal "uh oh" and Sage's is a shake of my head). I decided if they were to fail and I had to mark it, it should be in a context other than agility. Once I was confident in their stays and they had an understanding of the NRM, then I started to use it in the context of an agility startline. However, with Sage I used NADAC trials to train proof her startlines since negative punishment would not have worked with her. Summit finds doing obstacles highly rewarding so with him, it was a strict no stay/no play beginning at Novice.

Diana said...

Morganne. When you say you use NADAC to train proof her stays. What do you mean? Diana

Morganne said...

Diana,
In NADAC (and DOCNA), you can train in the ring. Since Sage could care less if she left the ring (she loves doing agility WITH me but agility by itself is not reinforcing enough to use negative punishment with her). So I entered a NADAC trial and entered her in everything so we had like 7 runs a day. I would lead out (short lead out first) and when she would break, I could shake my head (her NRM) and walk her back to the startine and lead out again. The first time I had to replace her twice and then she broke again so we had to leave the ring (they do limit how often you can keep training). The next class she broke and when I walked her back and led out again, she stayed and got released and we ran the course for fun. IOW, no pressure on her to be clean, just FUN and rewarding since she stayed until released from the startline. So over a two-day NADAC trial with 7 runs per day, she pretty much had a solid startline after that. DOCNA also allows training in the ring.